Daily Archives: April 4, 2010

I idealize my childhood. I idealize my college years. I wax poetic about a grilled cheese sandwich I ate in 1999. (Well, not really. But I lived in Wilmington, N.C. then and there was this awesome sandwich place called Priddyboys and they made kick-ass large grilled cheese sandwiches. But I digress).

Anyway, I love nostalgia, absolutely love it. Which is why a few years ago, I totally devoured all of the episodes of VH1’s “I Love the 80s” show. I watched as they happily recounted life when L.A. Gear was the cool sneaker, Cabbage Patch Kids the cool toy, and iron-on decal T-shirts were all the rage.

I even liked VH1’s “I Love the 90s” shows, even though those were nowhere near as cool and didn’t feature enough Mo Rocca or Michael Ian Black, the two snarky commentators from the 80s specials.

So, yeah, VH1 knows people my age love to look back at stuff. But my goodness, what I saw on VH1 Saturday as I flipped around made me so sad. Apparently the channel did a series in 2008 that they’re re-running now called “I love the New Millenium.”

Yep, they took a year by year look at the decade that just passed! Do they really think people are missing 2007 already? Talk about beating a dead horse. This is beating a dead horse, putting him outside the barn, then smacking him around for a few more hours.

Yeesh. Please, people of television, I know you’re desperate for ideas. But you have to be able to do better than this.

***Never in a hundred years would I have predicted the beatdown Duke gave West Virginia Saturday night in the Final Four. I’m almost afraid to talk too much about it, for fear of jinxing the Blue Devils for Monday night.

But man oh man, Duke dominated that game. I have said for weeks, nay, months to my college hoops friend Tony that as good as Duke has been this year, there have been very few games where Kyle Singler, Nolan Smith and Jon Scheyer all played well offensively.

Saturday was one of those games. They were fantastic. Brian Zoubek, sensational. The defense? Fabulous. If Duke wins Monday, this’ll be by far the most unlikely championship they’ve won.

Couple other thoughts from the Final Four:

— Terrible to see West Virginia’s De’Sean Butler get hurt in the second half, with what looked like a serious knee injury. It looks like it’s just a sprain. And I have to admit Bob Huggins, a man I loathe, had a touching moment with Butler as he lay writhing on the court, cradling his player’s head and comforting him.

— Duke-Butler for the championship game. Who had that in the brackets?

— Very exciting, if not exactly well-played, Butler-Michigan State game in the other semi. What an amazing story Butler is, one game from a title as a mid-major school from a small conference. If they were playing anybody but Duke Monday night, I’d be pulling hard for them.

— Here’s something that probably means nothing but is fun to talk about: Both Duke’s best player and Butler’s best player are white. When’s the last time two white guys were the best players in the NCAA championship game? Gotta be at least 30 years ago, right?

— If Duke wins Monday (and I think it’ll be a good game, very close), Mike Krzyzewski will break a tie with his mentor, Bob Knight, for most national titles, with 4. That would be fantastic, and would likely drive Knight a little nuts.

**And finally, Happy Easter to all who celebrate it. That picture above is my own fond Easter memory. Back when I worked in N.C., my wonderful friends Brian Feagans and Diana D’Abruzzo realized that as a Jew, I never got to go on an Easter egg hunt as a kid. So Easter weekend one year they got a bunch of colored eggs, drew Jewish stars on them, and buried them around Brian and his wife Helena’s house.

They called me over, and for two hours we held the world’s first Passover Egg Hunt. That’s me with two of the treasures. It was awesome.